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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James from London" data-source="post: 4047" data-attributes="member: 22">02/Apr/81: FLAMINGO ROAD: Bad Chemistry/Hurricane v. 03/Apr/81: DALLAS: Ewing vs. EwingWhen the Weldon Mill is found to be leaking toxins into Truro's water supply, the factory faces permanent closure, thus putting the livelihoods of the entire town in jeopardy. Senator Field Carlyle, the Weldons' estranged son-in-law, gets to decide whether or not the mill stays in business. As is being concurrently demonstrated on DALLAS, where Senator Bobby is in a similar situation regarding his parents and Takapa, conflicts of interest are rarely a problem in Soap Land.On two separate occasions this season, JR and Cliff have observed that "the whole world's ecology crazy," and environmental concerns have proved a useful plot device since Soap Land first opened its doors for business (e.g. the Office of Land Management in DALLAS, the plot of "Community Spirit" in KNOTS). However, Field and Bobby are each less concerned with the ecosystem than with how their respective Macguffin du jour will impact their own family situation. Bobby articulates this most explicitly during a scene with his father: "I'm not making a case for ecology, I'm making a case for your marriage."Conversely, while Bobby is more concerned with healing his parents' marriage than healing the planet, Field sees Truro's environmental disaster as a way out of his own marriage, and agrees to save the Weldon mill on the condition that Constance grant him a quickie divorce. Claude is far from happy to have his daughter used as a bargaining chip. "I've sold you short," he tells Field. "You're a bigger bastard than I thought you were."Constance also seethes at being blackmailed, but unlike Miss Ellie, is not in a position to say, "To hell with the empire." However, Sheriff Titus explains to her that granting a divorce isn't the same thing as being divorced. Having informed Slade the Hit Man of Lane Ballou's whereabouts, Titus assures Constance that "that tramp will soon be history" and that Field will then return to her, if only for the sake of his career. Titus and Constance's willingness to collude in Lane's execution flies in the face of future Soap Land convention which strongly delineates between the shows' regular villainous characters and the even more ruthless - usually murderous, occasionally baby-napping - associates with whom they recklessly embroil themselves. (One such example might be JR and Jeremy Wendell, who this week enter into an agreement for West Star to purchase Ewing Oil - and we all know how well that partnership will turn out.)"The Gathering Storm" of last week's DALLAS episode title becomes the "Hurricane" of this week's second FLAMINGO ROAD ep. Taking the concept of pathetic fallacy to the extreme, Hurricane Michelle hits Truro in time for the season finale and a motley assortment of series regulars, anonymous hit men and comedy bit players wind up taking shelter at Lute-Mae's. In order to identify the assassin in their midst, the Mae West wannabe has the genius idea of dancing with all the men in turn in order to distinguish those with a holster strapped to their shoulder from those who are just pleased to see her. It's kinda fun, in a "Winds of Vengeance" meets THE LOVE BOAT sort of way, but altogether wackier than one might have expected from a season finale. After the briefest of shoot-outs, the bad guys are either all dead or under arrest, leaving Lane and Field reunited and the episode looming dangerously close to happy-ever-after territory. Fortunately, Constance is on hand to renege on her promise to grant Field his divorce. A last minute fight between husband and wife at the top of Lute-Mae's staircase leads to Constance pre-empting DALLAS's season finale by a few weeks and DYNASTY's series finale by eight years, as she takes a slow motion dive through a broken railing down to the floor below. It's not as far a fall as the one we left Sid Fairgate contemplating last week, or as apparently fatal as the one suffered by Ted Dinard, but it's still serious enough to provide FLAMINGO ROAD with its first end of season cliff-hanger.Like "Ellie Saves The Day", the Season 2 classic in which the Ewings face financial ruin unless Miss Ellie allows JR to drill for oil on Southfork, "Ewing vs Ewing" is a "what if …? " episode, where the family ponder the possibility of Jock and Ellie's divorce and the break up of the Ewing empire. The scene between the four Ewing wives, in which Sue Ellen comes close to burying her differences with Pam before also clashing with Donna, is a particular gem.Discounting his brief appearance at the beginning of next week's instalment, this is Jock Ewing's final episode. A diminished presence he may be, but Jim Davis still gives good ornery, particularly in the scene where he orders Bobby to vote his way at the Takapa hearing. Poignantly in retrospect, Jock and JR's last on screen conversation is an interrupted phone call, just as JR and John Ross's will be in New DALLAS.This week, Lane Ballou and Afton Cooper go head-to-head in the latest round of Soap Land Song Wars. Having apparently exhausted her repertoire of numbers with the word "blue" in the title, ("Midnight Blue", "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue", "Blue Kentucky Girl", etc.) Lane croons a pleasantly dull version of "Nevertheless (I'm in Love with You)" in Field's direction. Afton, meanwhile, demonstrates an impressive yodel at the end of "the first is the worst hurt of a-a-a-all" before segueing into a bespoke forty-two second version of "Steal Me Away". That this takes place in the same scene where Afton and Cliff meet for the first time only adds to its significance. So it's a first time victory for Cooper.Minor matriarch quibbles: Eudora and Ellie are both slightly irritating this week. The former reacts to the hurricane by becoming even more querulous and hysterical than usual - shrieking, singing, swigging from the neck of a brandy bottle and doing all sorts of unnecessary comedy business - while BBG goes in the opposite direction during her pivotal reconciliation scene with Jock at the end of the episode, turning her back on her fellow actors and disappearing into her own breathy, ethereal dream world to deliver her big speech. As soon as she turns around and engages with the other people in the room, she becomes instantly more effective, more grounded, more of-this-earth again.And the winner is … DALLAS.2nd: FLAMINGO ROAD.</blockquote>

Verification: What month follows July?